my KIA

is a brand new, grass green, sparkly 2011 CMV (cunt mama vehicle?! cytomegalovirus?!) 'Soul/Exclaim!' with all the implications of those words. i bought it last month and not only did it cost more money than i've ever spent on anything ever in my whole entire life, it is also the absolute very first car i've ever bought, period. prior to that i borrowed, or took a cab, or a long time boyfriend would have something, a Duster or a shitbox Dart. my dad bought me a blue panel truck when i drove to Steamboat Springs, CO to teach at an ill-fated school. my last car was the used GrandAm my mum left me after she died. it's still going strong, the motor anyhow, albeit dented up and nutty, but drivable and kicking. now my sister has it. my mechanic promised it'd be good for at least another 60-90 thou. for 15 years it drove me all over town, gear and all. the point is, again, i never bought one of these myself. i never had to. i was terrified of the expense, the responsibility and the threat of getting smacked up in traffic. but now, with Social Security to handle the monthlies, i own this thing, this car, this object of which i am so fond. oddly it is as if i am in some over the top, obsessive romantic relationship with a 'thing', an inanimate. i talk to it as i approach (clicking open the door from 20 feet away): 'hi'. when i leave i say goodbye. when i start to meditate i 'see' it, the face of my beloved, a misty vision before me. it is my friend, my easy lover, my favorite dog. it even looks like someone i know with it's snub, bug's nose. i caress the hood, the dash, the hound's tooth upholstery. everything on it works - the windows, the doors, the gas cap, the sun roof, the electronically adjusted rear view mirrors and the hazards (which i forget to shut off and rush back to correct). every design choice pleases my aesthetic eye as if delivered in some rare Nirvana cloud by a beloved guru. it is So Quiet with the windows up you can't hear the engine idle at a stop light. there are so many instrument panel buttons i lose focus trying to make adjustments on the radio/cd/Sirius player. the AC kicks in like arctic snow. i can, if i want to, open the gas cap without leaving the driver's seat. (the GrandAm required a screwdriver.) the mileage is green - 24 city, 32 highway. the front window is so wrap around huge it's as if i'm in a diving bell with a 360 panorama, an Avatar in a 3-D future. in the rain the wipers, front and back, work seamlessly with no scars across the glass. an endlessly gorgeous tingling sensation has every trip i drive feel brand new, like a pot high and each regular journey a first time kiss. i don't know when i'm going to tire of this, if ever. i wish my mum could have seen it, she would have loved it, beaming and posture erect in the passenger seat, proud of me for making such a brave, wise choice. i can't take full credit. my room mate's girlfriend posed as my wife. she did her hair and wore a snooty, just-try-to-impress-me look to ward off any hard core salesman. in the meantime she'd already chosen the KIA on line, pricing and comparing the other models i checked out, the Chevy HHR and the Honda Element. we looked at all three on motor mile. the Element was four-square awesome. it's all-plastic interior can be hosed down without spoiling. it's salesperson was a sweet, wet-lipped, mumbler who was the exact opposite of the sleaze bag hotshot Music Man type we expected. it was as if he tried to not sell the car. we liked him. my 'wife' liked him. but the Element, as fab as it was, was ultimately 4G's more expensive than the KIA with way worse mileage. the HHR guy couldn't have given a shit. his shop was greasy and no one there seemed to want to sell anything to anybody. the car looked cool on the outside, but was claustrophobic to drive and the steering had a squooshy, no-control feel. we saw the KIA last at a small mom n pop dealership. we test drove a 2010 red, but i was not, under any circumstances, going to buy a red car and meanwhile the saleman was a shark, but so obviously so that we laughed him off. the only available not-red was a pea green 2011 loaded (the only 'Soul' on the lot). i had sworn up and down that the one thing i would not do was buy that day. we were just looking, period. i'd brought the wife along to make sure i kept my promise. but the shark showed his teeth and offered an awesome deal and the wife whispered that it was too good to pass up and so fuck it, i bought it on the spot and strangely without a shred of buyer's remorse. i drive it like a little old lady terrified she's gonna hit something or get hit. eek! i take it all the way out to Watertown to my favorite car wash so it can be sprayed with protective goo. i pluck something as small as a single pine needle off the floor mat and flick it out the window like a booger. i guess it's the American thing, a dude and his car, except that this one's Korean, smallish with no leather ball sack under the rear axel and well, in the vernacular, 'gay'. but fuck it, i'm in love and when that happens no one can tell you different. my plan, my hope is to drive it as long as i did the GrandAm at which point i'll be 80 years old and they'll want me the fuck off the road. i will fight whomever tries to do that with brick-in-purse as i hit the gas and crash it through a store front window.

herpes

was the name of Chet and Billie's cat. he was orange and yellow, like the sore without the pus. i think Chet had the ooze on his cock and so kitty got honored with the diagnosis. Kelly had it on her lip, upper right. in her yearbook picture she did the one-finger rescue, just so. her classmates duplicated the gesture in support. 10's of pretty girls with cocked head and forefinger on the upper right smiley lip just so. we always knew who her boyfriends were because they all had the same burnt bacon scab in same spot. an Irish girl at work had it so bad her entire mouth was Cajun blackened. it was grotesque. i have one, mid-upper. it cracks open at gigs and bleeds a trickle when i hit the mike in an extravagant emotional moment. the thing is, herpes ain't AIDS so we kinda laugh it off, but still i wonder about the origins, the ontology. who gives it to us? was it a deep french kiss in Prague? foul drinking water from an over-shared bottle? a nefarious coke addled blow job? it ID's you, Herpes, as if to indicate and tag an overactive, dirty sex life (if there is such a thing). who wouldn't want that, the scab badge of courage? at some point Lysine eradicates the symptoms. an occasional thumper pulsing on my upper lip reminds me of an old friend, but he never materializes. he is a he, isn't he? a particularly man-triggered flag. what would constitute a female STD? warts? warts down there? i dunno. thank god i don't 'show' any longer.

guns

scare the shit out of me. i was never the brat with the plastic holster and a pop gun. i liked Tonto more than the Lone Ranger and Silver more than either. i played doctor, house and store not war. i can count on one hand my encounters with the dark metal. 1) dad marching into the living room with a Civil War musket that he strung up on the mantle that now leans against my bureau like an exhausted whore. 2) the brass flare gun he fired into the night sky chasing my sister and her boyfriend around the block in a jealous rage. 3) the 22 which, along with my mother's jewelry, was stolen out of our house in Philly. my parents were away. i was in charge. i brought some inner city kids out to the house to drink, smoke weed and go crazy. which they did. (i was probably after one of them.) when mum and dad returned only to discover the missing jewelry, the 22 and their screwball son, they flipped. weak-kneed courage and guilt carted me down to South Philly to track down the culprits and the loot. i located two of the guys on the street and pleaded with them. 'the shit ain't mine. i have t get it back. i understand why you took it. i'd been a fool to have you guys out to a house with a lot of stuff around when you have little. i won't call the cops. i just want the shit returned. pretty please.' one of them sent a scout to find their leader. he sent back a message: if i return the next day he'd hand it over. i did and got it back, but the 22 had been sawed off and the punk pointed it at my head, watched me sweat, lowered it and laughed at my silly, tail-between-legs girly idealism. no more social work for Berlin. 4) in Somerville my sister and i met a pyro who'd burned three houses to the ground. we considered adopting him (cross-eyed hearts). i'd met the kid when he was 'working' at the Ritz Carleton beauty salon the same time i was wall papering the back room. (this was the same place i unearthed hair rinses with fancy names like 'Frivolous Fawn', 'White Mink' and 'Chocolate Kiss' that got transformed into the Orchestra Luna song 'Doris Dreams'.) he moved in, slept in my bed and enjoyed nights of passive blow jobs and meaningful looks. one day my next door neighbor, the boy i was really in love with and who'd become jealous of pyro, showed up at the door with a 45, heavy in his hand. i think it was his way of telling me to dump blondie. i hid it under the mattress until the fire starter left, nervous about the maniac next door. in seconds me and my sister grabbed the gun, walked to the Charles and threw it in the river, plop. 5) in JP, back from seeing 'Raging Bull', stoned, my boyfriend and i walked into the kitchen and there it was, on the table under the lamp, thick, gray and nasty, a serious piece. it had been put there by some coke dealer staying the night. i yelled at him to get the gun and himself the fuck outa the fucking house or i'd call the fucking cops. truth be told there were times during the operatic scenery of my relationship back then when i tried to manipulate my boyfriend under threat of suicide - prima donna Berlin. had there been a gun lying about i think in a split second of weakness i might have tried to use it on myself, or worse. so there ya have it. i hate them. i'd love to get rid of them. fuck that i-am-a-real-man-with-a-gun shit. fuck it up the ass.